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Expert Sources

Jeff Chester - Executive Director

Jeff Chester is executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy (CDD), a Washington, D.C. non-profit and one of the leading NGOs advocating for consumers on digital privacy and consumer protection issues. Founded in 1991, CDD (then CME) led the campaign for the enactment of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA, 1998). Since 2003, CDD has helped place digital privacy on the Federal Trade Commission's policy agenda. Through a series of reports and formal complaints, CDD successfully engaged the Commission to begin addressing unfair and deceptive practices arising from online advertising. Recently, CDD's two-and-a-half year effort to strengthen COPPA's privacy protections for children under 13 resulted in a groundbreaking decision by the FTC in December 2012, in which the commission ruled -- for the first time -- that "cookies," geo-location data and other "persistent identifiers" are to be considered "personally identifiable information" (in the context of online services targeting children). A former investigative reporter, Jeff Chester is author of Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy. He was named "Domestic Privacy Champion" in 2011 by the Electronic Privacy Information Center. CDD is a member of the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD).

Joy Spencer - Associate Director

Joy Spencer is currently the Center for Digital Democracy's associate director. Ms. Spencer is a committed consumer advocate with a background in community engagement around issues that affect the health of the poor and communities of color, both internationally and domestically. Most recently her work with the Institute for Social Analysis and the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association has centered on HIV prevention education, research and community engagement that addresses the structural determinants of health. Ms. Spencer previously worked with Knowledge Ecology International in Washington D.C. on projects related to intellectual property and consumer access to medicines and other knowledge goods. Ms. Spencer's commitment to access to quality health outcomes continues with her work at the Center for Digital Democracy, highlighting the impact of targeted digital food marketing on the privacy rights and nutritional food choices of youth. Ms. Spencer studied Economics at the College of William and Mary and received a Masters in International Educational Development at Columbia University's Teachers College.

Angela J. Campbell - Co-Director, Professor of Law

Angela Campbell teaches at the Institute for Public Representation where she runs the First Amendment and Media Law section. Prior to joining the Georgetown Faculty in 1988, she was an attorney with the Communications and Finance Section of the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division and in private practice as an associate with the law firm Fisher, Wayland, Cooper & Leader. From 1981-83 she was a Graduate Fellow at the Institute. Her writings include Restricting the Marketing of Junk Food to Children by Product Placement and Character Selling in the Loyola Law Review, Self-Regulation and the Media in the Federal Communications Law Journal, Ads2Kids.com: Should Government Regulate Advertising to Children on the World Wide Web? in the Gonzaga Law Review, "Lessons from Oz: Quantitative Guidelines for Children's Educational Television" in Comm/Ent, "Universal Service Provisions: The 'Ugly Duckling' of the 1996 Act" in the Connecticut Law Review, "Publish or Carriage: Approaches to Analyzing the First Amendment Rights of Telephone Companies" in the North Carolina Law Review, and "Teaching Advanced Legal Writing in a Law School Clinic" in the Seton Hall Law Review.

Kathryn Montgomery - Professor of Communication Studies

Kathryn Montgomery is a full-time professor of Communication Studies at American University. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the Public Communication Division and in AU's Undergraduate Honors Program. Her classes have included: Principles of Strategic Communication, Entertainment Communication, Communication Research, Media Criticism and Media Culture in the Digital Age. From 1991-2003, she was President of the nonprofit Center for Media Education. Her leadership as a policy advocate during the 1990s led to passage of the first federal legislation to protect children's privacy on the Internet — the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Montgomery is a contributing scholar to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation initiative on Digital Media and Learning and author of Generation Digital: Politics, Commerce, and Childhood in the Age of the Internet (MIT Press, 2007).

Sonya Grier - Associate Professor of Marketing

Sonya Grier is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Kogod School of Business, American University. Dr. Grier conducts interdisciplinary research on topics related to the societal impact of targeted marketing efforts (both commercial and social), using a diversity of methodological approaches. Her current research investigates the relationship between marketing activities and consumer health, with a focus on obesity prevention among high-risk groups. Prior to joining American University, she was a member of the first cohort of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar program at the University of Pennsylvania. She also spent two years as an in-house consultant at the Federal Trade Commission, where she provided consumer research expertise as part of a presidential mandated team examining the target marketing of violent movies, music and video games to American youth. Dr. Grier has published her research in leading marketing, psychology and health journals. She received her Ph.D. in Marketing, with a minor in Social Psychology, from Northwestern University in 1996. Dr. Grier also has an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, with an emphasis on marketing, non-profit management and international business. Her undergraduate degree is also from Northwestern University, with a major in Political Science.

Lori Dorfman - Director

Dr. Lori Dorfman is the director of Berkeley Media Studies Group, a project of the Public Health Institute, where she oversees BMSG's research, media advocacy training, strategic consultation, and education for journalists. Her research examines media portrayals of public health issues, including children's health, food and beverage marketing, nutrition, breastfeeding, violence, and alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. She co-authored the major texts on media advocacy: Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention and News for a Change: An Advocate's Guide to Working with the Media, teaches a course on mass communication at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, and co-chairs the Food Marketing Workgroup, a national coalition dedicated to eliminating harmful food marketing. She holds a doctorate in public health from the University of California, Berkeley.